Ақ Рождество: Қарлы мереке туралы әңгімелер

Christmas with the presence of snow, either on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day

A white Christmas is a Christmas with the presence of snow, either on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day, depending on local tradition. The phenomenon is most common in the northern countries of the Northern Hemisphere. This is because December is at the beginning of the Southern Hemisphere summer, and so white Christmases there are extremely rare with the exception being Antarctica, the Southern Alps of New Zealand's South Island, and parts of the Andes in South America as well as the southern tip of the continent, in places like Ushuaia, Argentina.

The notion of "white Christmas" was popularized by writings of Charles Dickens. The depiction of snow covered Christmas season found in The Pickwick Papers (1836), A Christmas Carol (1843), and his short stories was apparently influenced by memories of his childhood, which coincided with the coldest decade in England in more than a century. The song, "White Christmas", written by Irving Berlin and sung by Bing Crosby (with the Ken Darby singers and John Scott Trotter and his orchestra) and featured in the 1942 Paramount Pictures film Holiday Inn, is the best selling single of all time and speaks nostalgically of a traditional white Christmas and has since become a seasonal standard.

The criteria for a "white Christmas" varies. In most countries, it simply means that the ground is covered by snow at Christmas, but some countries have more strict definitions. In the United States, the official definition of a white Christmas is that there has to be a snow depth of at least on the ground on 25 December in the contiguous United States, and in Canada the official definition is that there has to be more than on the ground on Christmas Day. In the United Kingdom, although for many a white Christmas simply means a complete covering of snow on Christmas Day, the official definition by the British Met Office and British bookmakers is for snow to be observed falling, however little (even if it melts before it reaches the ground), in the 24 hours of 25 December. Consequently, according to the Met Office and British bookmakers, even 3 feet (1 m) of snow on the ground at Christmas, because of a heavy snow fall a few days before, will not constitute a white Christmas, but a few snowflakes mixed with rain will, even if they never reach the ground. In the United Kingdom the most likely place to see snowfall on a Christmas Day is in North and North Eastern Scotland, in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire or the Highlands. Although the term white Christmas usually refers to snow, if a significant hail accumulation occurs in an area on Christmas Day, as happened in parts of Melbourne on 25 December 2011, this can also be described as a white Christmas, due to the resulting white appearance of the landscape resembling snow cover.

In recent decades, white Christmases in Zagreb have been observed in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001 andmost recently, as of 2018in 2007. The probability of white Christmas in Zagreb has been estimated at 25%.

In most parts of Canada it is likely to have a white Christmas in most years, except for the coast and southern interior valleys of British Columbia, southern Alberta, southern Ontario, and parts of Atlantic Canada – in those places Christmas without snow is not uncommon in warmer years, with the British Columbia coast the least likely place to have a white Christmas. The definition of a white Christmas in Canada is of snow cover or more on Christmas morning at 7 am. Environment Canada started to analyze data from 1955 to 2017 for a total of 63 years, It shows the chance of a White Christmas for several Canadian cities. In 2008, Canada experienced the first nationwide white Christmas in 37 years, as a series of pre Christmas storms hit the nation, including the normally rainy BC Pacific coast. In 2015, the weather was mild in the east, with record setting warm temperatures in Toronto and southern Ontario which made 2015 a green Christmas while the west saw cold and snowy weather.

The last white Christmas in Kraków was in 2010. Rzeszów had a white Christmas in 2016, the first since 2011.

In Europe, snow at Christmas is common in Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus, and northeastern Poland. In general, due to the influence of the warm Gulf Stream on European climate, chances of a white Christmas are lower farther west. For example, in southern France a white Christmas is rare, while in Bucharest, Romania, which is at a similar latitude, it is much more likely. Northern Italy and the mountain regions of central south Italy may also have a white Christmas. In cities such as Turin, Milan or Bologna a Christmas with falling snow or snow on the ground is not a rarity. White Christmases are also common in the Carpathian Mountains, as well as the Alps.

Because Christmas occurs during the summer in the Southern Hemisphere, white Christmases are especially rare events there, apart from Antarctica, which is generally uninhabited. A white Christmas elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere is approximately equivalent to having snow in the Northern Hemisphere on 25 June. Some places like Ushuaia, Argentina and Stanley, Falkland Islands have received measurable snowfall on Christmas Day on numerous occasions. In 2006, a snowstorm hit the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales and Victoria, arriving on Christmas morning and bringing nearly of snow in higher areas. In New Zealand's Southern Alps, snow can fall any day of the year, and a white Christmas is possible. The same situation can be seen in the Andes at elevations above , with some locations on the Bolivian altiplano, such as El Alto, having the theoretical possibility of a white Christmas.